


superpowers

by snugglepup



Series: space & time [1]
Category: Homestuck, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crossover, F/F, Gen, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 14:23:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2735873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snugglepup/pseuds/snugglepup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're reaching down to see if you can wake her up when she does it on her own, opening eyes with irises a shade of green that's either almost or literally too vivid and intense to be natural. The two of you stare at each other and then she coughs and turns her head to the side and spits some blood onto the concrete floor while you wince.</p><p>"Eewww," she says, then "oh well!" She struggles to sit up and you give her a bit of a hand. "Sorry, but could you answer a few questions for me?" </p><p>You're not sure what you expected, but that definitely wasn't it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	superpowers

_i guess you could call it superpowers_

_but no one is going to save the world with what i've got_

_an indigo light from silvery towers_

_surrounded by rocks and stones as far as the eye can see_

[ _the dismemberment plan - superpowers_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A7194a04GE)

* * *

By the time you've knocked out your fifth SMG-wielding thug for the day you're already exhausted. Not so much phyiscally, you could keep this up all day; just _tired_. Are you really sure this is what you want to be doing, playing the big hero to the world while the real you is beating his way through some practically faceless terrorists not necessarily because it's the right thing to do but because it's what _S.H.I.E.L.D._ thinks you should do?

You're getting even more tired of only knowing half of what your actual mission is most of the time. Kick open a door and oh look, it's three more people you really don't even want to be fighting, if what you're doing to these jerks even qualifies as 'fighting.' Bull-rush with the shield in front, kick the legs out from under the first guy, shield facing the other two gunmen and deflecting bullets while a quick punch with your free arm makes sure the first guy isn't getting up for a while, twirl and throw shield, shield hits the second guy in the stomach and by the time he's halfway to the ground you're halfway across the room grappling another SMG out of the last guy's hands, socking his jaw hard enough to take him down, tossing the gun away, retrieving your shield and almost mechanically kicking the second guy in the stomach so you don't get shot in the back later. This isn't even making you get _creative,_ it's just depressing for everybody.

Not for the first or tenth time, you wonder what the world would think about Captain America if it ever got out that he's bored, lonely, and losing his sense of what he's fighting for?

This should be simple, at least. _Should_ be, so of course it won't be simple at all, not for much longer. 'Multiple powerful and unidentifiable surges of energy' to investigate that some group who might actually be more than just vanilla terrorists if they got here faster than S.H.I.E.L.D. and already set up defenses, you take the front lines like you usually do, Romanov slips in the back to casually end a lot of human lives, and then you rendezvous in the general area of those energy surges, probably after she does some other shady thing Fury didn't bother including in your version of the briefing.

Actually, you're pretty sure you're closing in on that area, if the blueprints are sticking in your head correctly, and the sound of gunfire diminishing in one direction means she's probably somewhere nearby. You know what? To hell with the rendezvous. She can take care of herself and she can catch up once she's done with whatever the secret mission is this time. You're opening this door to the small courtyard that is supposed to be the source of... something.

'Something' turns out to be a couple _more_ men with guns who look like they're trying to defend the area. The fight, the shooting, the shield jabs, the grapples and throws, all of this you sleepwalk through, more or less on autopilot. Once, you made the mistake of watching security footage of yourself fighting multiple opponents like this and it scared the hell out of you, seeing what you are from the perspective of anyone who isn't you: almost mechanically efficient, brutal if _technically_ nonlethal, unsettlingly relentless. All you've ever tried to do was be a good person and even when you're fighting guys who definitely need to be fought, it's getting tough to think of yourself as _good_ any more.

With the courtyard cleared you carefully approach the closed door. There's no noise from inside and for whatever reason that makes you slightly nervous. It's got a big cheap-looking lock and chain _,_ the kind of thing you've stopped expecting to run into; you're getting a little bit too comfortable with adjusting some of your expectations to fit a world that isn't really _yours_ anymore. Regardless, it's obvious this was stuck on in a hurry. You fix the lock by breaking it with your shield, get ready for the possibility of a real fight, and move through the door totally unprepared for a small room with two kids in it.

Well, not _kids_... teenagers, maybe, sixteen or seventeen, except that one of them doesn't look human at all and the other one looks perfectly normal until you notice dog ears that are apparently very real and very twitchy. As far as you can tell they're both unconscious. This is the part where you radio that your mission's complete and then S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't bother explaining what any of this actually _meant_.

But you're sick of S.H.I.E.L.D playing God and there's at least one minor involved. Fury can live through a few more minutes of silence.

You steer clear of the grayish devil girl while trying to get a decent idea of her appearance:  battered gray skin, some sort of curled ram-horns in shades of candy corn orange. After crossing the room very slowly you kneel down over the other one, trying not to be too concerned about those ears. She's beat to all _hell_ , an elegant black dress torn and even _burned_ in some places, bruises on an upsetting amount of skin, but they don't look like the kind of injuries you get in a kidnapping, during a fight, from interrogation, they look more like what you'd get from falling down a mountain on fire or getting caught in a really bizarre car accident.

You're reaching down to see if you can wake her up when she does it on her own, opening eyes with irises a shade of green that's either almost or literally too vivid and intense to be natural. The two of you stare at each other and then she coughs and turns her head to the side and spits some blood onto the concrete floor while you wince.

"Eewww," she says, then "oh well!" She struggles to sit up and you give her a bit of a hand. "Sorry, but could you answer a few questions for me?"

You're not sure what you expected, but that definitely wasn't it.

"Where am I? What's the date?" A hand goes to her temple and she groans. "Oww. I'm alive, though! That's usually a good thing. No reason to complain about a headache."

"You're in an old military facility some jerks set up shop in, apparently to hold you hostage. It's the thirteenth of April. Don't worry, I'm getting you out of here."

"Hostage?" She blinks, looking genuinely confused. "No one can hold _me_ hostage! That's just not how it works. And, I'm sorry, but April thirteenth of what year?" That last bit is what makes your stomach do an unpleasant half-turn.

"Two thousand thirteen," is all you can think to say for the moment, "Seriously weird time period, but you get used to it."

She growls in a way that sounds a lot more like a wolf's than a human's.

"Well, great. That doesn't help at all! Stupid universes." She shakes her head and then grits her teeth. "Am I by myself? Maybe I'm finally the _first_ one to wake up." That second sentence sounds like it was directed at herself and not you, but if there's any meaning there, you're too busy with the last two words to pick up on it.

 _Wake up_. Cold fingers run up your spine and a selfish ember ignites in your chest. It can't mean anything good, but... is it possible that you're not the only one displaced in time, feeling like he's lost his whole world and then gotten himself lost in another one?

 _Can_ it mean something good? The world's decided that _you_ did. You're still not sure whether or not you agree.

"From whatever _you're_ waking up from? No idea. You know, you might not want to sleep in the same room as things with horns." You direct her gaze to the monster girl and she gasps.

"Oh, no, is she okay?" There's a shocking burst of sun-bright green, leaving your eyes to take a few seconds to recover, and when you lower your shield the gray-skinned girl is lying sideways on the concrete on this side of the room with her head in the green-eyed girl's lap, and suddenly, no matter what's actually going on here, there's no question that you're a _complete jerk_ for not immediately thinking of them both as actual people. "This is all my fault," the girl says, looking downward while she gently pets the other one's hair, noticeably careful not to touch those horns at all. "Sorry, I'm being really rude. I'm Jade! What's your name?"

Okay, so she doesn't know who you are. That's more than a little bit weird. Has she been... _asleep_ even longer than you? She doesn't give you the impression, but stranger things have happened. Actually, stranger things are happening all the time lately.

"Steve Rogers," waiting for her to recognize the name and watch yourself dissolve into an icon in her eyes. Instead she just smiles in a tired way and you realize it's been a long time since someone actually genuinely didn't know who you are. It's a nice feeling, so of course this moment is when the door busts open again and it hits like a detonating grenade that you don't have time to keep bullets off of both her and yourself. Kind of impressive how badly you screwed up, all because of sentimentality. You're not sure whether Fury's reaction would be more disgust at your incompetence or razor-edged smugness, not that you care. The shield's just managed to cover most of her when the thunder of an assault rifle fills the room.

Nothing much seems to happen until you look at the gunman, who, interestingly enough, isn't holding a gun any more, and then you see the bullets. There are fifteen or sixteen of them just floating in the air, almost perfectly still. The girl squeaks happily.

"I guess I woke up at just the right... _time_ ," says what must be the other girl, whatever she is, in a voice that's almost human but flickery and _resonant_ somehow, and Jade half-snorts and half-giggles.

"That one was _awful,_ even for you." The disarmed gunman finally gets over his confusion and reaches toward a knife at his belt. You're halfway to him, shield ready, when he's hurled sideways into the wall by seemingly nothing, hard enough to leave cracks. The bullets suddenly fall to the ground with a few clinks, roll, come to rest. Adrenaline-flooded, you look back to the girls. Jade's arm is outstretched, a faint green light pulsing and then vanishing around dark skin. The other one's thrown an arm out to the side, and then she sweeps it from right to left and the once-armed man, still groaning, is ripped from the ground by some invisible force and smashed against the opposite wall.

"Should I kill him?", the horned girl says, like that's _nothing_ , and a nasty flash of Romanov fills your eyes for a second. It doesn't make you feel particularly good, the way this reminds you of just how long you've worked with the woman and seen more humanity in her when she's in disguise than she ever shows as herself.

"No!" It bursts out without conscious thought, not that time to think would have changed anything, and it syncs up almost perfectly with Jade's identical proclamation, although you sound more firm and concerned and the girl sounds more frustrated, like she's scolding the other.

"Dee, you already smacked him all over the place, we don't have to kill everyone who tries to kill us! Between us we don't have to kill anybody." There's a weariness there that says the dog-eared girl's had this conversation before, and more than once.

"But he _attacked_ us," the alien/demon/whatever she is pouts. "If he's dead, then he can't do it again. And don't call me that in front of other people, you're weird."

 _"You're_ weird," Jade mutters, blushing slightly when the other girl pushes herself up to sit, then kisses her cheek. "Introduce yourself! You're being rude." The horned girl blinks at you like she's only just noticing that you're here.

"Uh, if I'm intruding on something here," you say.

"My name is Aradia! Aradia Megido." She ignores your weak attempt at snark and eyes you curiously, thick black pupils floating in deep orange.

"Steve Rogers," and she quirks her head to the side.

"Humans names are so weird," Aradia says, and Jade pokes her in the face.

"What about _my_ name? I'm human, is my name weird?" Is she human? Humans don't usually have dog ears _and_ normal ears. Actually, humans don't usually have dog ears at all, so who knows.

"Of course not, silly," and you can't help but sort of look away awkwardly when she cuddles up against Jade in a way that can't be anything but romantic. "Your name is perfect and lovely."

You really hope they don't start kissing. 'Watch possible minors being lewd from several feet away' wasn't on your agenda for today. A deliberate cough brings some focus back to you. Things are kind of tenuous here and you need to figure out what to do.

"I don't really know who you are or what's going on, but my partner and I are here to investigate some energy signature, I don't know, I'm not a scientist --"

"I am!" Jade says cheerfully.

"-- okay, great, but the point is, our mission objective just changed to retrieving both of you for... I don't really know what they'll make of this, honestly. We'll use force if we have to, and most of us aren't concerned about being gentle."

"Well, if there's a problem, I can just raze a few buildings and we'll leave," Aradia says. Jade glowers and knocks their heads together, cursing when it hurts her but leaves her horned girlfriend unscathed.

"Quit teasing, you haven't done that in at least six jumps and you're not about to do it again. If there's a problem we can just leave, find whoever else is here, and then try to jump again!"

"I don't think that's going to work," you say, leaving the ominously ambiguous 'jumping' thing for later. "Once th-- we have you, whether you leave or not won't exactly be up to you." They exchange looks and then synchronized giggling.

"It is very much up to us where we go and when," Aradia says. "She can get us out of anywhere. Should we go check this out? It sounds really shady, I like it." You wince without exactly being sure which parts of that you're wincing at. Probably all of them, come to think of it.

"Yeah! This could be a lot of fun."

You can hear Natasha reaching the end of the trail of groaning bodies you left behind and sigh. What the hell have you all gotten yourselves into now?

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 2 is probably where this actually gets interesting, but I wanted to kick it off and this seemed like the spot for a chapter break.


End file.
